How to get water?

[Technoincubus]

So far I've been meesing with the game it all ended with huge water deficit. And my only successful colony was when I spawned near steam geyser.

As my colony develops and initial water reserves run dry colony dies unless steam geyser is discovered. But in my latest games geysers were usually on the map borders so colony died anyway.

Is there any advice on how to generate water? Because electrolyzers hog lots of water, polluted water needed for fertilizer maker to get nat. gas or power shoragtes snuff colony out. 

Geysers generate about enough water to support oxygen and left some for everyday use. 

[Exa]

Stay with 4 dupes and 2 Algae Deoxydizer until you find a steam geyser. Get more Algae during your exploration for the geyser and you'll be ok

[WanderingKid]

I typically don't have a problem with fresh water, but then again I abuse Deoxydizers for a long time.  Algae is pretty useless for anything else and I end up with sizeable stockpiles, and can always go out and get more.  I get around to the electrolyzers eventually but they're not usually a big deal for me.

There's tons of PH2O out there too, and a couple of distillers will fill up a huge tank eventually (2/liquid pump).  I've currently got a colony going on cycle 70 with 22 dupes and only using 2 electrolyzers backed up with 4 deoxydizers around the base here and there, as well as a 20x20 PH2O pit built out of air tiles with deodorizers on top.  Seems to work fine.  I get complaints about not making enough O2 now and then but my base is usually well pressurized so I don't worry about it to much.  I'm on the hunt for the Natural Gas Geyser, annoyed that I found the two steam geysers already and they're making me adjust my dig paths so I don't interfere with them!

The trick to keeping fresh water, at least for me, seems to be avoiding using it except for the places I need it.  Latrines, a handful of electrolyzers, sinks now, things like that.  Sure, you eventually have to convert over to electrolyzers heavily, but by then you should be pretty well established and have raided the swamp biomes for their PH2O if you're concerned.

My biggest problem with this last release, or at least this map seed, is I'm running out of coal long before I can find a Natural Gas source and can't seem to find any of the large seams anymore.  I'm going to end up on petro before NGG, which seems a bit odd to me because of all that's involved getting petro up and running, but hey, that's how it works out sometimes.

[SusanMcO]

I have been using coal less and less and using more manual gens with two or three batteries hooked up.  No resource issues then. 

[Byste]

You can tackle the problem on multiple fronts.

• Fewer dupes = all supplies last longer.
• Use less water. You don't need to turn meal lice into lice loaf, you don't need to use algae terrariums, you don't need to upgrade outhouses to lavatories, you don't need showers at all, dig a larger CO2 pit instead of processing it with a carbon skimmer... You can survive barely using any water at all for quite a long time, to be honest.
• Focus more on exploration. As soon as you find a steam geyser you should be golden for the rest of the game as far as essentials go, though a more luxurious (and higher dupe count) base will probably need 2 geysers eventually. Finding a natural gas geyser also adds water to your system, since polluted water is an output of the generators.

 

3 hours ago, Exa said:

Stay with 4 dupes and 2 Algae Deoxydizer until you find a steam geyser. Get more Algae during your exploration for the geyser and you'll be ok

4 dupes consume 400 g/s of O2 and a single deoxydizer produces 500 g/s, 2 deoxydizers are not really necessary.

3 hours ago, WanderingKid said:

My biggest problem with this last release, or at least this map seed, is I'm running out of coal long before I can find a Natural Gas source and can't seem to find any of the large seams anymore.  I'm going to end up on petro before NGG, which seems a bit odd to me because of all that's involved getting petro up and running, but hey, that's how it works out sometimes.

With 22 dupes by cycle 70 you're probably drowning in dupe labor. Make them run on gerbil wheels. Also, round up your hatches and feed them garbage resources to get renewable coal. I also like to get one in every bathroom I make ASAP because they can eat your polluted dirt from outhouses and polluted water from wash basins. Last tip, if you're clever with your electrolyzer design, you can actually generate a net positive amount of electricity with them. Since you've already got steam geysers, there should be no issue with making this happen.

[WanderingKid]

7 hours ago, Byste said:

With 22 dupes by cycle 70 you're probably drowning in dupe labor. Make them run on gerbil wheels. Also, round up your hatches and feed them garbage resources to get renewable coal. I also like to get one in every bathroom I make ASAP because they can eat your polluted dirt from outhouses and polluted water from wash basins. Last tip, if you're clever with your electrolyzer design, you can actually generate a net positive amount of electricity with them. Since you've already got steam geysers, there should be no issue with making this happen.

On the subject of water, at least for the thread, I'd gotten far away from outhouses and wash basins and updated to latrines and sinks way back, and my electrolyzers help feed the main power system so not too worried there.  My power concerns are more because I've decided to play with all the new toys... at once. XD  (And I need that labor, they're digging out search patterns in the asteroid all over the dang place!)

[Byste]

2 hours ago, WanderingKid said:

On the subject of water, at least for the thread, I'd gotten far away from outhouses and wash basins and updated to latrines and sinks way back, and my electrolyzers help feed the main power system so not too worried there.  My power concerns are more because I've decided to play with all the new toys... at once. XD  (And I need that labor, they're digging out search patterns in the asteroid all over the dang place!)

Yeah sorry my reply for you was about alleviating your power problems, not anything to do with water. You said already you found both steam geysers so any trouble you have with water is self inflicted  all my comments about water was for the OP because they were having trouble before getting the geyser

[WanderingKid]

15 minutes ago, Byste said:

Yeah sorry my reply for you was about alleviating your power problems, not anything to do with water. You said already you found both steam geysers so any trouble you have with water is self inflicted  all my comments about water was for the OP because they were having trouble before getting the geyser

Fair, it's easy to miss in my post that I've not bothered to cap or use them yet, at all.  PH20 supplies almost all my needs for a looong time with how plentiful it is, the steam geysers are just nice to haves for me.

[Reaniel]

14 hours ago, Technoincubus said:

So far I've been meesing with the game it all ended with huge water deficit. And my only successful colony was when I spawned near steam geyser.

As my colony develops and initial water reserves run dry colony dies unless steam geyser is discovered. But in my latest games geysers were usually on the map borders so colony died anyway.

Is there any advice on how to generate water? Because electrolyzers hog lots of water, polluted water needed for fertilizer maker to get nat. gas or power shoragtes snuff colony out. 

Geysers generate about enough water to support oxygen and left some for everyday use. 

1. Don't use electrolyzer until you find a steam geyser.  Burn your algae using the deoxydizer instead.

2. Don't grow any of the water consuming plants until you find a steam geyser.  Don't use the Microbe Musher to make your food.

3. Research and transit to Lavatory and Sink as soon as as you can.  Lavatory essentially gives you extra water when dupes use it.  Yes, it uses (clean fresh) water, but you're increasing your overall amount of water.  Compare to Outhouse, the output is a lot more advantageous for you.

4. Avoid carbon skimmer unless you really have to use it.  I'd personally just dig my CO2 pit deeper if the CO2 is creeping into the main living quarters.

5. Hamster wheels aren't that bad.  I don't usually bother building my natural gas complex until roughly the same time I started building my oxygen liquefier, which is usually around cycle 150~200.  The thing is that until you start building large complex, your power consumptions are mostly not running full time, and more often than not, most circuits can be satisfied with 1 coal generator and 1 manual generator (which happens to produce.. the magical 1kW together).  In addition, you should really tap the natural gas geysers first for your natural gas generators before worrying about fertilizer synthesizer chain.

[Queron81]

When I don't find a steam geyser early, I use to filter polluted water. I just pump it from the lowest reservior of polluted water and dig to the other reservoirs above from time to time to let the water fall into the pumping area, when it is going to run out of water. If it isn't enough, I do the same at another slime biome (or another side of a very big slime biome), because i need to explore anyway, so why not digging up and building ladders through the slime biome? That way I found the steam geyser in my current game

[SusanMcO]

I use lot of hamster wheels with batteries, and stay at 4 dupes for quite a while.  I switch to electrolyzers somewhat early, but only 1-2 that are self-sustaining after a hamster start (electrolyzer/hydrogen gen/battery combo)